The invention relates to improvements in containers in general, and more particularly to improvements in receptacles (hereinafter called packs) for relatively small articles such as needles, pins and the like.
It is known to confine arrays of relatively small articles in so-called blister packs wherein a carrier member or backing member of cardboard or another material is sealingly connected with a cover member of light-transmitting plastic material. Examples of such blister packs are those which are used for storage and for displaying of batteries, tooth-brushes and many other products which are available for sale in hardware stores, drugstores, supermarkets, cigar stores and other establishments. As a rule, a blister pack is designed to permit convenient inspection of the confined article or articles as well as to afford convenient access for removal of discrete commodities or groups of several confined commodities.
British Pat. No. 14 69 404 discloses a blister pack which is used for the storage and for displaying of dressmakers' needles. The needles extend through a piece of textile material which is fastened to the rear side of a plate-like carrier member, and the needle-carrying portion of textile material extends forwardly through a window in the carrier member. A panel is used to overlie the textile material at the rear side of the carrier member, and such panel is affixed to the carrier member. The front side of the carrier member is adjacent a light-transmitting cover member of plastic material. The cover member is rigid but the carrier member has several parallel fold lines constituting rudimentary hinges along which portions of the carrier member can be flexed relative to the cover member to thus expose the articles. As an alternative, the patent proposes to cause a portion of the panel to extend forwardly through a window of the carrier member and to serve as a means for directly supporting the needles. To this end, each needle is caused to penetrate through two spaced-apart zones of the forwardly extending portion of the panel. In order to assemble the modified pack, it is necessary to first connect the needles to the forwardly projecting portion of the panel and to thereupon secure the preformed plastic cover member to the front side of the carrier member.
A drawback of the patented packs is that they are rather expensive. Moreover, it is quite difficult to remove selected needles from the piece of textile material or from the forwardly projecting portion of the panel, even after the carrier member is already flexed along a selected fold line so that a section of such folded carrier member extends away from the adjacent portion of the cover member. It is even more difficult to return a withdrawn needle into the pack, i.e., the patented packs are not suitable for renewed storage of needles after one or more uses.